Madagascar: the fat of a lean island

Since his election President Marc Ravalomanana has run Madagascar like an extension of the business conglomerates he owns, with help from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund - and the churches.

Marc Ravalomanana won the 2002 presidential election because his monopoly of Madagascar’s dairy industry gave him the financial means, and the affirmation of his Protestant faith secured the support of the Christian churches. Almost four years later the “yoghurt king” is still using the same recipe.

Ravalomanana took office in the Indian Ocean island state in May 2002, after a six-month political crisis that erupted when the outgoing head of state, Didier Ratsiraka, who had held power for 20 years, refused to accept defeat.Popular agitation subsequently drove the old autocrat into exile in France. The decisive factor was the support of the powerful Malagasy Council of Christian Churches (FFKM), which had played an important part in the crisis of 1991, when its mediation between Ratsiraka and the “living forces” of the opposition opened the way to a transitional government.

Since his election Ravalomanana has concentrated on building unprecedentedly close relationships with the religious authorities. In August 2004 he was re-elected as vice-president of the Reformed Church of Jesus Christ, one of the four churches making up the FFKM. A few weeks later Jean Lahiniriko, the president of the national assembly and a member of Ravalomanana’s TIM party (Tiako I Madagasikara, “I love Madagascar”) became treasurer of the Lutheran Church. Other denominations have not been neglected. According to Madeleine Ramaholimahaso, a founding member of the National Committee of Election Observers, “Jacques Sylla, the prime minister, is a Catholic who was nominated at the suggestion of Cardinal Armand Razafindratandra.”

In April 2005 a World Bank loan funded a national rally of FFKM pastors. Ravalomanana took advantage of the occasion to tell participants that he wanted to make them agents of development at the service of the state. He openly suggested turning Madagascar into a theocracy, though its constitution defines it as secular.